How the Queen is beating the hosepipe ban...

THE Royal Family has been beating the hosepipe ban with a string of ingenious schemes to recycle water.

The Queen has been able to keep watering the grounds of Buckingham Palace thanks to a borehole dug []

The Queen has been able to keep watering the grounds of Buckingham Palace thanks to a borehole dug in 2002.

The 150-yard well takes water used to air condition the Queen’s Gallery and recycles it to top up the lake, irrigate the gardens and flush the toilets used at summer garden parties and by visitors to the State Rooms.

Last year, the initiative saved 262 cubic metres of clean mains water throughout garden party season.

A spokesman for the Queen explained: “Buckingham Palace already uses a borehole to supply the majority of the water used in the garden, so the gardens will still be irrigated as required.

“Many of the beds are supplied by semi-automatic systems that irrigate during the night when the water is better used by the plants.

“The watering of the lawn areas at all residences, apart from Buckingham Palace, will stop to focus on keeping the important plant collections alive.”

Buckingham Palace already uses a borehole to supply the majority of the water used in the garden, so the gardens will still be irrigated as required

A spokesman for the Queen

Prince Charles has also taken a leaf out of his mother’s book by using water bowsers – large, mobile tanks – to irrigate the gardens at Clarence House and St James’s Palace.

The Prince was once dubbed “His Royal Hoseness” after insisting that a garden hose be installed in his bathroom at Clarence House to recycle bath water to irrigate the grounds of his official London residence. The hose was in situ last week, following the announcement of the ban by Thames Water on April 5.

Water for the bowsers, which are also installed at Kensington Palace and Marlborough House, is taken from the Buckingham Palace borehole under a special abstraction licence.

A Clarence House spokeswoman said water-saving showerheads had also been installed in the Prince’s properties. Dual-flush toilets and flow-restricted taps have already been fitted at Clarence House.

A borehole was dug at Highgrove, Charles’s country home in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, several years ago.

Bath water is reused there also and rainwater is collected from the roof of the Orchard Room, stored in large underground tanks and used to flush the toilets.

Both royal households now publish details of their energy saving initiatives – with Charles even going so far as to offset his carbon footprint by planting trees.

He had pledged to cut his CO2 emissions by 25 per cent by 2012.

He superseded that target last year, reducing them by 31 per cent.

Since 2006, the Queen’s household has appointed “green champions” to each department to encourage staff to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

The Queen personally switches off lights at Buckingham Palace and insists that staff recycle as much as possible, even encouraging them to turn old tablecloths into dusters.